Moth's Wings
by ProbableStars
Summary: Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake and dress them in warm clothes again. / There are an infinite number of universes, September tells him.


**butterfly effect** – _noun. _(Physics) the idea, used in chaos theory, that a very small difference in the initial state of a physical system can make a significant difference to the state at some later time

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There are an infinite number of universes, September tells him, each vibrating at different frequencies, like the hum of a hive of bees, thousands upon thousands of hives, billions upon billions of bees. There is a buzz in Peter's ears that will not go away.

_There must be one then_! This is when Peter still has the energy for rage, when Peter spits out his words, snarling and screaming and punching walls. _One _fucking_ universe where she _lives_!_

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_Peter,_ Walter says _I know you wanted me to talk to young Olivia's step-father, but you see, it is hardly my place, you might not understand this, but sometimes even the smallest of changes, the alteration of even the slightest of conditions, of initial variables, can have catastrophic results, can drastically alter a system's final outcome_. Walter pulls at his tie with shaking hands – _in science we call this the butterfly effect_ – it falls across the stick shift and into Peter's lap in a slash of purple, a deep and dark plum like a line of thick bruises. _We just need to get you home to your real parents._

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blue:

There is a moment somewhere, lost in a sea of endless case files, each more disturbing than the last, but wrapped safe and tight and warm in blankets, thick woolen blankets, piled high across the sloping backs of Olivia's couches. _Ella_, Olivia had answered his raised brow. And Peter had coaxed her into her niece's fort and out of her clothes. Afterward, in the quiet he had whispered the words into the golds of her hair, blankets overhead, _we could just stay here, right here, you and me, let someone else save the day,_ and she had looked up with her Olivia eyes, soft, an Olivia smile, soft, and she said _Peter_, soft, but then the phone rang, loud, the silence broken, by Broyles, by Walter, or Astrid, Nina Sharp and William Bell, Boston PD, two whole universes and all kinds of people needing all kinds of saving, there was no one else for the job but them, and really, that's all this is, Peter's been just trying to get back to that moment ever since.

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The leaves are a faint orange that bleeds through the broken windows of the decimated lab. Olivia's head is in his lap, her eyes closed, his fingers at her throat, pulse weak. _I'm sorry _he moans the words into her hair. Astrid is speaking: _Peter, this isn't your fault. Every little action, every change affects the final result. It's…it's a butterfly effect. You didn't do this, No one did this. _He sobs her name, _wake up!_ he begs his wife.

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amber:

They fix the machine on a Wednesday morning; Peter steps inside that afternoon, nods a goodbye to two Walters, two Broyles, two Olivias. He thinks, _they know me they know me let them know me take me where they know me. _

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_Tell me what to do you stupidfuckingpieceofshit,_ Peter says.

September says, _the paths fork endlessly ahead, with each action there is reaction._

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orange:

"'Liv'a," he moans.

"_Peter_," he hears the tears in her whisper, the raw relief.

"Hi."

"Hi," she laughs back, watery, rubs little circles into his palms.

He doesn't open his eyes, squeezes them shut and thinks _pleasebeherpleasebeherplease pleasebeher._

Walter's voice comes next. The machine is broken, the universes are still decaying at exponential rates, though Walter has done something to some chemical to patch some hole. Bandaid for a bullet wound, he warns. Peter had been lost to them all for eight full hours (three full months) before reappearing, spitting up blood beneath the machine's thick black base. (_Son_, is all Peter hears of this explanation.)

With Walter gone there are endless questions, tests and tricks that only Olivia, his Olivia, could know. She passes them all without complaint.

_Open your eyes_, she commands.

_Marry me, _he replies.

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In an MIT lecture hall, a marker squeaks across a whiteboard, a silver-haired man with a frenzied air about him slashes at the air, carving symbols and numbers across the board. If the few crooked letters, a slim line of text underneath an equation, appear irrelevant, it is because they are – a _butterfly effect_. Peter takes no notes.

The marker is green.

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September dies on the last day of August. Peter is fifteen.

(But also: Peter is 39, Peter is six, Peter is 85, Peter has not yet been born, Peter is already dead, dead at 7, dead at 66, dead at 32, Peter has never existed, Peter will never exist.)

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purple:

The bench at the 15th precinct is the most comfortable. That, and Senator Bell's far-reaching hand extends only so far as the 14th. Peter spends a full six hours in the cell before Elizabeth comes to collect him. There is a girl in there with him, lying across the bench opposite his, clothes black and hair gold. It spills through the cracks in the wood and touches the floor. She stares.

"I'm Peter," he tells her.

"You're not from here, are you?"

He sits up, white faced, barks a laugh, heart in his throat, "what gave me away?"

"You're glimmering."

Seventeen, he smirks – "I could say the same to you, sweetheart."

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green:

Seven year old Peter Bishop dies and is buried; twenty days later another Peter Bishop sits in the lab of a man who is not his father, but looks like his father, drinks something that tastes like KoolAid, but is not KoolAid. _This is my favourite flavour_, this Peter, the alive Peter, tells this Walter, the sonless Walter. _I know_, he says after a very long time. And he returns with Peter to the lake, six hours later, despite the sobs of his wife. She begs him to stay. He does not. Elizabeth Bishop will drink every liquid in his lab until she finds the right one. She goes to sleep and will never wake up. The sonless Walter Bishop will return his not-son Peter Bishop to the other Walter Bishop before drowning in Reidon Lake. When his body is found William Bell will have him buried next to Elizabeth, next to Peter. A year later Bell will be arrested, will serve five years of a nine-year sentence, six counts of child abuse. When he is paroled, Marcus Seater, life without parole for three counts murder – Marilyn Seater, 34, Rachel Dunham, seven, Olivia Dunham, eleven – takes his cell. Peter Bishop, nineteen, graduates – top of his class, youngest in his class – from MIT, creates arguably the world's most popular video game, _Raydon Lake_, dies at 22, unmarried, car crash.

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The cheat sheet reads as follows:

Red!Peter is born to Red!Walter, raised by Blue!Walter, beguiled by Blue!Olivia, tricked by Red!Olivia, forgiven by Blue!Olivia, loved by Blue!Olivia, erased from existence before reappearing, unknown to two sets of Amber!Waters and Amber!Olivias.

Red!Peter is returned to a Blue!Olivia and a Blue!Walter. Except that they are not Blue!, except that they actually Orange!Olivia and Orange!Walter because his return makes them Orange!, makes them different, makes a new world. Except that each change results in more change. There is a new world, a new colour, a new Olivia and Walter every time he steps out of that damn machine.

It will take him much too long to figure this out.

Orange!Walter and Orange!Olivia die in a crumbling universe Red!Peter makes no attempt at repairing. He steps in the machine again, again and again and again. Destroys a universe, repairs a universe, builds a bridge, a tunnel, a boat, imagines each and every possibility as he steps into the machine, but each one leaves Olivia dead in his arms – dead in yellow and orange and navy and burgundy, turquoise and magenta.

September says, _the initial formation of a hurricane may be the result of a butterfly flapping its wings a half second too soon_. Peter, drunk, sees a Navy!Olivia, dead beside him, hears: _go back to the beginning._

Next there are greens, purples, crimsons and apricots, grays and beiges. _I always knew I was in the wrong universe _or _Olivia was never doused with Cortexiphan _or _I never left Baghdad. _Dead and dead and dead.

Peter longs for blue.

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purple:

Peter is twenty-three and Olivia nearly twenty-one the next time they are locked up together, precinct 18. She smells of smoke. The benches are hard.

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When he is tired, so, so tired, a weariness that makes his joints feel rubbed raw, September tells him the thing already knows, has known since Walter pulled him out of that lake – _there can be no going back. _

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Olivia's lashes flutter closed against the hollow base of his throat, a butterfly kiss, soft.

The room is dark, black. And in any case, Peter's eyes are closed.


End file.
